Out of This World! Paper Airplane Snaps Amazing Space Photos

The boundary between Earth and space take center stage in this photo captured by cameras on a balloon-launched paper airplane built by space enthusiasts at The Register in the U.K. The plane was carried to an altitude of about 17 miles before descending back to Earth on Oct. 28, 2010.Credit: The Register [Full Story]

An oversize paper airplane sent up
toward the edge of space
by a British online tech publication has snapped stunning photos of the
final
frontier and the Earth far below.

The paper aircraft's Vulture 1
mission took place Oct. 28 as
part of the Paper Aircraft Released In Space (PARIS) project conducted
by three
space enthusiasts with The Register, an online technology publication
in the
U.K.

Photos from a camera attached to the
plane show the curve of
the Earth and the black of space beyond. [Paper
Airplane's Photo of Space]

"The project came about as a response
to the Japanese
proposal to throw paper planes from the International Space Station,"
Register
writer Lester Haines told SPACE.com in an e-mail. "We thought we could
do
better, so we did."

Haines and fellow space fans Steve
Daniels and John Oates
built the space-photographing plane out of paper
straws and stiff paper,
which served as internal ribs. It has a 3-foot (1-meter) wingspan and is covered with a paper skin painted orange and
silver. They
set the plane loose from a staging ground in Spain.

The plane was carried skyward by a
helium balloon and reached
a maximum altitude of about 89,591 feet (27,307 meters), which is
nearly 17
miles (27.3 km), before descending to Earth and landing in a thick
wooded area,
according to Register mission updates.

Haines said the project cost about
?8,000 (almost USD $13,000)
to build the oversize paper plane, obtain the weather balloon and
launch the
mission. The Register chronicled the Vulture 1 mission from
start to finish
over the last year.

"It was quite an emotional moment to
see the plane go
off into the blue yonder, but recovering the Vulture 1 intact was a
once-in-a-lifetime event," Haines said. "Things got even better when
we saw the photos, and especially the video footage of the plane
release.
Spectacular stuff."